At one of my English Clubs — a place for students to practice their English — last Tuesday, 140 7th and 8th graders crammed into a classroom that shouldn’t be able to hold more than a third of them. They were there to learn a few English words and watch the American put a condom on a wooden penis. I was there to teach them about HIV/AIDS. The class started by discussing what HIV/AIDS is and how it affects the human body. Then, I showed them some statistics about people living with HIV/AIDS worldwide. I told them that sub-Saharan Africa has the highest number of infections, and that 1.2 percent of the population of Burkina Faso is currently living with HIV/AIDS.

Next, we discussed the different ways you can contract the disease. I explained to them that it can be transmitted through blood, from mother to child, and through sexual relations. The human reproductive system and sexual education isn’t taught until the 9th grade here in Burkina. So, I asked them if they knew what sex was. After the initial laughter died down, I taught them what sexual relations are. You may be thinking that these children are too young to be learning about sex, but quite a few of them are probably over 15 years old and are already having sex, not knowing the risks involved. Many of the girls, unfortunately, may not even feel they have a choice in the matter.

My job is to explain to them the importance of protecting themselves and presenting all the options on how to do just that, including abstinence. When I brought out the wooden penis the class erupted into laughter — but by the end of the hour-and-a-half session, every student in that classroom knew why, when and how to use a condom.

SEE ALSO: Back to Africa: Finally a Peace Corps volunteer!

Peace Corps volunteers around the world have English Clubs. They are one of the many ways we are able to get across more important messages about health issues, human rights and more. Toward the end of this month, President Obama will be releasing his annual budget proposal. As ONE members, we need to remind him the importance of the United States’ international aid and development programs. My 7th and 8th grade English Club wanted him to know that they appreciate what the United States does to help them so they took this picture with me. Fifteen million kids are alive today because of US efforts.

Nadine is 14 years old and in the 7th grade. She wakes up at 4 a.m. every day to sweep the courtyard and house before her father wakes. Then she walks to the pump to fetch water for the entire family for the day. She then prepares breakfast, most likely a type of porridge made from millet. The younger children eat first and if there is any left, Nadine might get a little. She readies the children for their day at school or in the fields. After quickly washing up, she bikes the 20-minute ride to get to school. She usually arrives just in time.

At lunch, Nadine bikes home and immediately begins cooking with her sisters, while her brothers sit and review their lessons or play soccer. Again, she serves herself last, and once finished, washes the dishes. Then she bikes to the market and helps her mother sell peanuts, after which she bikes back to school. Once school is out, she bikes back home, and she and her sisters start preparing dinner for the family as well as washing the family’s clothes.

After everyone has eaten, she cleans the dishes and finishes the laundry. By this time, the sun has set. Nadine’s family doesn’t have electricity. So she pulls out a flashlight, which has batteries that last for an hour, and attempts to quickly do her homework and study. She falls asleep and wakes up a few hours later to start the whole cycle all over again.

Nadine’s story is typical to most Burkinabe girls. Add to it the violence and sexual harassment they face in schools and you can understand why many aren’t able to succeed in their education, which is an incredibly important factor in the development of a country. In partnership with educators and parents’ associations, I am trying to convince parents to share household chores between boys and girls equally.

In January, Peace Corps Burkina Faso will be having a week-long “Doorways” training seminar. The “Doorways” training program was designed by the USAID-funded Safe Schools Program to enable teachers, community members and students to prevent and respond to school related gender-based violence. These are just a couple ways that Peace Corps volunteers like me are fighting the challenges that girls face here in Burkina Faso on a daily basis. With 2012 finally upon us, there is hope in this new year for Nadine and all the girls just like her.

You can find out more about “Doorways” here.

I was born in Texas but because my parents are missionaries, and as a result, I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to travel the world. We actually spent a lot of time in Senegal when I was a child, but I don’t have many memories of living there. I do, however, remember falling out of a swing and having the wind knocked out of me. And I remember watching a lizard climb up a tree. But even with a lack of memories, I’ve always felt as if Africa was my true home. And after having been away for more than 17 years, I’m finally back.

My father, a licensed social worker, and my mother, a registered nurse, were very development-oriented in their work. They instilled in me a compassion for the rest of the world and the desire to help those in need. I went to school to study cultural anthropology and social work, in the hopes of one day going into the field of humanitarian aid and international development.

After graduation, my next step was clear: join the United States Peace Corps.

Now, here I am, living for the past three months in Burkina Faso, a small landlocked country in West Africa and one of the poorest countries that Peace Corps volunteers serve. After three months of arduous linguistic, cultural and technical training, I’m out in the field getting my hands dirty, both figuratively and literally as some of my work is agricultural in nature. My primary assignment is in the education sector, focusing mainly on promoting education for women and girls and gender equality in schools.

But that doesn’t mean my work stops there. It is very cross-sectoral. I tutor primary school children but I also plant trees for reforestation. I teach children and adults about HIV/AIDS, malaria and proper hygiene, and I also help start girls’ clubs at nearby schools.

As a ONE member, you ask the US government to continue funding important international aid programs, like the Peace Corps. Over the next few weeks, I’d like to show you how some of that funding translates into work on the ground. Hopefully, by the end, you’ll see how being a voice for the voiceless truly does make an impact. And I’m sure that we’ll all learn something along the way.

The US Embassy in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso will hold an Agreements Signing Ceremony in September for the 23 new micro-development projects it will support for small associations and communities in Burkina Faso. They plan to kick-off more than a dozen additional projects this month. These “self help” projects are a great example of how different US government agencies can work together to meet a common goal.

This year, the US African Development Fund contributed $50,000 and $100,000 from their development budgets to support the US Ambassador’s Self Help Fund, which has a huge impact on the quality of life for Burkinabé. As a presidential management fellow from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, I was lucky to be part of the State Department’s team charged with visiting potential project sites across Burkina Faso.

After three hours of off-road driving to one project site, I was greeted by a circle of women, dancing, clapping and singing a welcome song to our delegation. I shook the hands of everyone present, an upwards of 50 villagers gathered in the shade of a large tree for our meeting that day. I noticed how coarse their hands were from a lifetime of hard work on the farm or milling grain. They greeted us with water, and by pulling me into a circle, insisted that I dance with them. They welcomed me as one of their own, and this reception became the norm for me in all corners of this country.

One women’s association in a remote village received a grant for a grain mill so that they can provide enough food for their families, and no longer have to grind grain into flour by hand or walk more than 8 miles per day to and from the nearest village with a mill. Many groups received funding for boreholes or wells –- a way to access potable water. Some villagers are walking 5 miles or more to the closest source of potable water, while others have been drinking water they know is unsafe. Other communities were granted financing for seeds and fertilizer in order to grow vegetables. Not only will this mitigate food insecurity, but it will create revenue for the families to use for their children’s education or health care costs.

Two common themes among all communities I visited was their hospitality toward us and a positive, hardworking spirit. With these grants, we hope to enable these communities to help themselves out of the hardships of poverty. As an American visitor to remote Burkinabé villages, I know I will be memorable to them. But I tried to explain how far more memorable they will be for me.

-Elaine Kelley, Economic Section, US Embassy Ouagadougou

Forty-one villagers in Dassui make up the ‘Wenden Kondo’ (God Will Provide) market gardening group. Through a local group the partners with Self-Help Africa, they learned how to grow the best crops and were given seeds, tools and funding for fencing and a water supply.

Today, they grow onions, cabbage, carrots, chili, garlic and rice and grain during the rainy season. They use some of the vegetables to feed their families, and some they sell in the nearby Bitte market.

Zungrana Awaya, a mother of six and the secretary of the group, is one of Wenden Kondo’s 20 women members. She says the gardening project has provided a valuable source of income for her family.

‘I was born in this village, but I left because there did not seem to be any way for me to make a living. But the garden is creating new opportunities.”

It’s a hard job, she says. But life is getting a little better. In fact, everything is getting a little better. The money that they get from their farming activities is helping Zungrana and the other villagers send their children to school and buy medicine when it is needed.

And their hard work is supporting nearly 400 people in their local community.

“My son, who is 17, says that he wants to leave because he has few prospects of work,’ Zungrana says.

But she tells him not to forget about the garden. “It is new, but we are hopeful that it will grow.”

Through this partnership, she was able to grow her farm from 20 hens to 175, enabling her to pay for her four children to go to school, buy more food for her family and reinvest in the farm. Read the rest of her story here.

This is just one example of the inspiring work happening on the ground in Africa. To read and watch many more stories from the field, particularly about agriculture and food security, please visit Africare’s story page.

-Nicole Eley, multimedia communications and marketing, Africare

Famine in Niger affects 12 million – Expensive imports and aid remain out of reach for 12 million people in Niger – 80 percent of the population – which is facing the worst food crisis in years. Aid organizations say that the immediate obstacle preventing them from meeting urgent food needs is a donor shortfall of more than $100 million. (Afua Hirsch, The Guardian)

Horn of Africa once again polio-free – The Horn of Africa is again polio-free, with Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda having reported no cases for more than a year, said UNICEF. The victory is attributed to a series of multi-country immunization campaigns, along with greater technical support and strong political engagement. (Peter Mutai, Xinhua News)

Make Maternal Health Priority, African Leaders Told – Speaking at last week’s African Union summit, the Deputy U.N. Secretary-General maintained that women and children are the “engines” driving future economic growth on the continent, and that leaders must making meeting the 2015 Millennium Development Goal deadline of improving child and maternal health a priority. (Abimbola Akosile, AllAfrica.com)

Kenyans to Vote on Controversial Constitution – Kenyans will vote on a controversial new constitution this week—the latest step by the nation’s leaders to bring political change to their country to quell tribal tensions. The U.S maintains a new constitution is central to this effort. (Sarah Childress, Wall Street Journal)

New focus on Sanitation in Burkina Faso – Burkina Faso has embarked on the construction of 55,000 latrines each year for the next five years to improve access to proper sanitation by more than 40 percent. The new initiative was spurred by findings that the current pace is insufficient to attain the Millennium Development Goal on sanitation in a context of rapid population growth. (Brahima Ouédraogo, IPS)

This week, Ritu Sharma, Women Thrive’s Co-founder and President, has been in Ghana and Burkina Faso, trying to learn about what life is like for women farmers, what their governments are doing to empower them, and what U.S. assistance programs can do to help. Accompanied by a team of Women Thrive staff, Ritu has met with local women’s organizations, such as their advocacy partner, Coordinator Coalition Burkinabe pour Le Droit du la Femmes (CBDF), a coalition of 15 women’s associations that educates Burkinabe women and helps them advocate for better economic rights. She has also met with individual women farmers, Burkina Faso government officials, and U.S. development agencies working in the country.
Read Ritu’s daily diaries and conversations with women farmers.

For most women in Burkina Faso, where almost half of the population lives below the poverty line, life is a daily struggle. Typically living in rural areas, most women have little access to ongoing education or potable water. Yet because they are the majority of farmers and are responsible for child care, Burkinabe women spend much of their day performing field work, growing food and crops for their families. However, despite this often grueling work, many Burkinabe women are not allowed to own the very land they farm, because customary often law excludes women from land ownership, preventing them from investing in the tools, irrigation, and seeds that would make their families better fed and their children better off. Learn more about women’s role in agriculture.

-McKenzie Lock, Women Thrive Worldwide

The problem:

The Senate funded the assistance by proposing to cut the budget of the Millenium Challenge Corporation (MCC), which invests in long-term poverty reduction, by 1/3. The U.S. has already promised MCC funding to several very poor countries, including the African nation of Burkina Faso, scheduled to sign a compact with the MCC in July.  Since the news, the NGO community has been advocating hard against the proposed cuts.

The result:

Last week the proposed cuts were reduced from $525 million to $58 million by a conference of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The Senate approved the bill last night and it is now up to the President to approve.

This month, I had the privilege of traveling to Burkina Faso, one of the poorest countries in the world. 80% of the population is rural, subsistence farmers. The women I met in Burkina Faso rely on small vegetable plots to feed their families and send their children to school. The MCC’s programs would help women have access to land, help girls go to school, and improve rural roads – key strategies for reducing poverty and increasing food security. I also met with government officials who told me that the country has already spent $5 million of its own budget and has undergone years of preparation, consultation, and reform in order to qualify for MCC assistance. Pulling funding at this point sends
a signal that America is not a reliable partner. While responding to emergencies is vital, cutting long-term development funding to pay for it puts people at greater risk for poverty and food insecurity, the very problems we are trying to solve. (Listen to NPR’s Morning Edition on the cuts)

What has this experience taught us? Two things. First, there is no doubt that we need to reform our Foreign Assistance policies to invest in long-term poverty reduction, ensure that women’s needs are included, and prevent situations like these from happening. Second, with the right advocacy, activists and NGOs like the ONE Campaign have the power to
make reform happen.

- Nora O’Connell, Vice President for Policy and Government Affairs,
Women Thrive Worldwide